[Old Man] Logan

by TIMMY

17 years.

When Logan is released in March 2017, Hugh Jackman would have played the Wolverine character for 17 years. Blade is credited for being the lynchpin for Marvel movies, but Fox’s X-Men, which was released in 2000, set the tone for today’s comic book movies. Disney launched their Marvel Cinematic Universe, Warner Bros launched their DC Extended Universe, Sony made two different Spider-Man Universes but X-Men only soft rebooted. They had missteps with X-3 & Fantastic Four, but they never gave up. With the success of this year’s Deadpool (that was rated R), Fox felt comfortable enough to give Wolverine the send off he deserved – with a R rated movie.

Due to movie rights, the storyline of the movie will differ greatly from the comic source material. The movie sees Wolverine (real name James Howlett, but picked up Logan in the war) with a greatly diminished healing ability, living in a wasteland 2024 where most of the mutants have been killed. He goes on a mission with an aged Charles Xavier (Professor X), to protect a girl that was heavily rumored to be X-23, a clone of Wolverine. The trailer confirms this, with Professor X telling Logan that the child has powers and abilities similar to his own. It also appears that the Professor is losing control of his powers.

A government agency by the name of Transigen is turning mutant children into killers, and Wolverine and Charles take it upon themselves to save the young girl. Their head of security is Donald Pierce, played by Narcos’ Boyd Holbrook (Agent Murphy), is a cyborg in the comics and frequent enemy of Wolverine. In the film’s marketing, we see a severed arm, and Pierce is shown to have a robotic arm. He leads a group of killers called the Reavers, who will serve as the main fight fodder for Logan in the film.

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In the 8-part Old Man Logan comic, the United States has been conquered by super villians, and most of the heroes are gone. Logan lives with his wife in “Hulkland” that is run by the “hillbilly” grandchildren of Hulk and his first cousin, She-Hulk. He joins a blind Hawk-eye on a mission to deliver a package, with hopes of getting some money to pay his landlord. Logan hadn’t used his claws in years, because Mysterio created an illusion that the X-Mansion was under attack by supervillians. Logan killed all of the “attackers” but it was revealed at the end that he had murdered of all of his mutant friends. After this, Logan tried to kill himself by jumping in front of a train – which effectively killed the “Wolverine” persona.

The mission with Hawkeye, which Logan thought to be drug induced, turns out to be the blind hero’s attempt to recreate the Avengers, with samples of Captain America’s super soldier serum. They are ambushed by S.H.I.E.L.D agents and Hawkeye dies. Logan’s healing ability works enough to keep him alive and after he returns home, he finds that his wife and kids have been murdered by the Banner family. This causes Logan to unleash his claws for the first time in years, and he murders Bruce Banners grand children. Hulk himself confronts Logan, and explains to him that he hasn’t had a decent fight in years, and that’s why he instructed his family to kill Logan’s. Hulk is bigger [II] and stronger than before, and eats Logan. Wolverine kills him from the inside and finds baby hulk afterwards.

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Who knows how dark this movie will go, but without access to Sony’s Mysterio and Disney’s Hulk, a lot of key elements will be missing.

That being said, Fox still has enough plot threads that they can use to make Hugh Jackman’s last hurrah as Wolverine an emotional send off.

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